I bought this built-up water tank a couple of years ago and just now pulled it out of the box. Good detail but the thread that supports the spout is not flexible enough to allow the small plastic “weights” to come down when the spout is lifted. There are two remedies that I can think of but neither of them seems practical. #1 get some REAL smalll thread and try to re-string, or #2, add some real weight to the plastic ones. I don’t know how I would do this.
Bruce, if I follow you, that is the way the strings are meant to be. You may have seen my image of the Kanamodel CPR style water tank I posted a few weeks back? The instructions were to weight the strings against a metal rod shoved into the spout to keep the spout at a set angle. I used clamps heavy enough to pull the strings straight down, as per the directions. Then, over five painting sessions, we were to paint a light white glue solution onto the strings to stiffen them. The idea is that the tiny weights are not going to keep the strings hanging realistically, so you provide it initially and then paint the threads to make them rigid. This, I think, is what you are facing, and it probably should not be undone…it’s a static model.
I have some of those water tanks as well. And the ‘strings’ are a rather poor representation of the cables the weights are attached to. I replaced the strings with scale ‘chain’. Clover House and Precision Scale have several different styles of chain material available. Just choose one that looks good to you!
My suggestion is exactly the same as Jim’s above. I used A-Line chain (#29220 - 27 links per inch) on my water tower. They also make 40 links per inch (#29219) if you think 27 looks too large.
OK, the chain sounds good. Now, how do I fasten the chain to the plastic weights? For that matter. to the spout as well. The string appears to be molded into the weights and tied around the spout on the other end.
I built up the kit and solved the problem a little bit different from the previous posters as I didn’t have access to “chains”. I took the thread and dribbled Testors liquid cement on it (with a weight on the end to keep it taught), let it dry and added a couple more coats. Then I painted black / rust and drilled the appropriate holes in the spout/weights. From a distance of a foot or more, it looks just like old cable.
Mobilman’s idea is a darned good one, IMO. I’ve got two of the Walther’s water tanks on my MR, plus their concrete coaling tower that has the same thread going through the coal chutes. The cement should be flexible enough for what positioning should be done, and also keep the thread looking like cable.
Think I’ll try it. I have one Atlas water tower that uses chain for the spout, but it is pretty much in a fixed position–plus the Atlas tower is high up on my mountain. The glue/thread sounds a little more flexible, especially since both my water towers and coal tower are pretty much foreground models.
Fed each end of the chain through the front side of the pulley on either side of the ladder support so that there was equal length hanging down on either side
Glued a plastic weight to each end of the chain with CA
Glued the exact middle of the chain to the eye at the top side of the spout with CA
Glued an ~3/4" length of chain to the eye on the underside of the spout
Bruce, I tried uploading a picture to my Railimages.com account in order to post it so that you could see exactly what I did but Railimages seems to be having some sort of issues at the moment.
I hope that makes sense, Bruce. I’d be more than glad to e-mail the pics to you, if you’d like.
Finally got Railimages to upload my pic, here is what I was trying to describe above:
The chain slips through the pulley so the spout is still adjustable either in the up or down position, or any position in between. Eventually I’d like to replace the kit’s plastic weights with “real” weights to increase the realism, as well as make the adjustment of the spout easier.
